A Baud Relationship
I often said I should marry a modem. That's not legal in Texas. I love my modem, though, so I married a man who also loves his modem and, together, we embarked on a rather unusual polyamorous lifestyle.
So your question was, "How did you meet your husband?" I met him on-line, of course!
Sometimes, I think I was the original chatrat. That certainly can't be true; even in the early 80's
I was out there chatting with other chatrats. I took it to extremes, both on the BBS's and even direct connections - terminal to terminal with my friend in Denver. Repeatedly, we'd hook our computers together on Friday night and stay connected until Sunday night. Oh, we'd go about our normal daily routines. We'd just drop by the computer every so often to check for a new comment or write a quick update. Sometimes, it was no more than, "I'm going out to mow the yard at 11:22AM CST."
Although I joked about a twelve step program, before those things were even popular, I never really cared to break my addiction. I loved it. I don't know when the shift came and the chats lost their magic for me.
That shift did NOT keep me off the modem. There were the games, preferably the multiuser games. I played by my own set of ethics, never attacking the newer, smaller empires (or whatever) but targeting the biggest in the game. I was the Queen of Solar Realms for several years. Then, I discovered Virtual Sysop, and tried to get the biggest and best virtual BBS by hacking the big ones and stealing their user lists.
One day, after an especially successful hack job, I logged on to Chrysalis to check the Virtual Sysop stats to see if any retaliatory hackings had destroyed my BBS. There had been some attempts, but no successes so I went to the mail list to check for tacky mail from the BBS owner I had just destroyed.
My mail list showed mail from Tobias, a name new to me. It was an introduction. He said he had read my biography page and liked it, especially the part where I wanted to live in the woods in Arkansas. I replied with a like introduction.
In our continued correspondence, I learned that he had a pet snake. I learned that he had spent most of his adult life in a monastery as a Carmelite monk. I learned that he was looking for a wife. I learned that he was socially awkward, intelligent and caring.
When we met for lunch at Jason's Deli, I learned that he was cute, too! He brought me a rose. He had done his research. In my bio where it asked, "what are you a sucker for?" My answer had been, "men with roses and Godiva Chocolates."
Our correspondence trickled to a near halt after that. I finally wrote to him and asked if he found me all that offensive? I wanted to be on a crusade to help him attract women and here he was, ignoring me! Besides, I'm really, REALLY attracted to strange people and Tobias certainly qualified as that.
He wrote back something about being confused regarding affairs of the heart, whatever THAT meant. Come to find out, he had been dating a person I call the hockey girl because she liked hockey. In any event, it started our correspondence again.
Such a schoolgirl crush I had on him!! Even though I knew that I had no intention of forming a relationship any time soon, (I was still trying to extricate myself from a relationship that had been bad for years), I found myself logging on several times a day just to see if I had mail from him. If I happened to be logged on and saw, "TOBIAS is on-line" flash across my screen, I had a very noticeable rush of excitement.
We wrote and wrote and he started coming over and hanging around with us. I loved that he would participate in our 'adventures'. One thing led to another and for my birthday (September 3) in '96, he proposed! It was so very romantic and the ring was amazing. I accepted on the spot.
So, I married a monk on October 24, 1998.
